The detectives at Armidale police station could not believe what they were hearing. Late on Friday night of June 29, 2007, they had arrested one of Armidale's richest men, property developer Phillip Hanna, who was charged with the attempted murder of his business partner. But within hours of Hanna's arrest their boss, the local area commander David Cushway, who was on sick leave, and the high-profile local MP Richard Torbay held an unauthorised meeting with Hanna in the police cells. Cushway directed a junior officer not to record their visit in the custody book.

Fast-forward six years, and Armidale is consumed by the mysterious recent resignation from public life of Torbay. ''It's all anyone is talking about,'' said one local.

As well as resigning as the Nationals' candidate for the federal seat of New England, Torbay quit as a state MP and also from the prestigious position as Chancellor of the University of New England. In February Cushway was appointed to the $200,000-plus position as the university's chief financial officer.

Adding to the drama was last week's raid on Torbay's house and electoral office by the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

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A recent Herald investigation uncovered a string of property dealings in which Torbay, Cushway and others, including local developer Nick Rice, are involved. One of their companies, Palanko, owns a commercial building in Kurri Kurri which is leased until 2016 to Centrelink for a total of $1.8 million.

Another of their companies, Dalbridge Developments, owns a building in Dalby, Queensland, which has a lease worth $2.6 million with Centrelink.

Since then the Herald has discovered that Torbay and Cushway's business partner Rice, as well as Hanna and his relatives, between them have leases on 14 Centrelinks from as far afield as Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory to Deniliquin in the south-west of NSW which have leases worth $48 million.

The pattern appears to be that their respective development companies buy a building in a town and within six or so months Centrelink chooses that building to lease. Rice's development company has also received millions of dollars in government contracts to refurbish some of these buildings.

A former employee of Hanna said that Hanna had a contact in Centrelink who provided information to him about ''what leases and sites were coming up''.

At 5am on the day he was arrested in 2007, Hanna had driven to his business partner's house with a .22 calibre rifle hidden inside a rolled-up bundle of building plans.

Hanna and his partner, Doug Jackson, were planning to make an early start to inspect one of their developments at Inverell. But in the pre-dawn darkness, as Jackson leant forward to turn on the kitchen light to make his mate a cup of tea, Hanna fired the gun. The bullet whizzed only millimetres above Jackson's head.

Jackson and Hanna wrestled over the gun. ''He kept jamming it in my face and was trying to fire another shot,'' Jackson said. Her husband's shouts brought Robyn Jackson running into the kitchen, where she found Hanna trying to wedge the gun under her husband's jaw. Once overcome, Hanna resorted to what he does best - bargaining. ''We got the gun off him and then he offered me all this money to not say anything about it. First it was $300,000 and then $400,000,'' Jackson said.

Perhaps Hanna thought a deal had been struck, because when police arrested him at a dinner party in Armidale that evening, the gun was in the boot of his Mercedes, with a bullet hole through the plans it was still wrapped in.

That same evening, police chief Cushway was dining at a local restaurant with Torbay, who had recently been elevated to the prestigious position of speaker of the NSW Legislative Assembly.

Other diners wondered what was going on as the police chief and the well-known local MP spent most of the night in a flurry of phone calls.

Although Cushway was on sick leave, he got word from the station that Hanna had been arrested. ''Cushy wants to know everything,'' said one of the police at the station who had taken a call from the boss.

News of Hanna's arrest sent a raft of high-profile townsfolk into a spin. Many had poured money into Hanna's property trusts, which in turn had invested millions of dollars in the Centrelink buildings.

One of Hanna's previous employees said that before Hanna's arrest he had heard Hanna speaking to Torbay about various developments, and that he was aware that Torbay had invested in Hanna's property trusts.

The former employee said that Hanna also talked about investments with his wife's cousin, Eddie Obeid, who at the time was a powerbroker in the ALP and a close associate of Torbay's.

When Cushway's underlings got wind of the secret visit to Hanna in the cells, they were furious. Not only was it a breach of police protocol not to inform the officers in charge of the investigation of what was discussed in the cells with Hanna, but there was also the potential for the investigation to be compromised or evidence to be removed. ''The investigation was still in its infancy and Cushway allowing a close ally of Hanna - and for all we knew at the time a possible accomplice - to talk to Hanna, it was wrong,'' one officer said.

It was well known Torbay and Hanna were close. Hanna was not only one of the largest donors to Torbay's campaigns, but when Torbay, who was the Armidale mayor, decided to stand for State Parliament as an independent in 1999, Hanna was his campaign manager.

The Herald has learnt that one of the last things Torbay did as mayor was to sign off on a deal to sell council land to a company associated with Hanna and Rice. The land was later used to develop a supermarket complex.

Back at the police station, one detective was so alarmed by Cushway's actions in organising the secret meeting with Torbay and Hanna that he began his own clandestine investigation. This officer told the Herald he collected all the CCTV footage and the swipecard records showing how Cushway had entered the building using a junior officer's card. He also discovered Cushway's instruction to another young officer not to record his and Torbay's meeting with Hanna in the cells.

''It took me a week or two to get it all done … and then I sent [it] off to PIC [the Police Integrity Commission],'' he said. PIC made a preliminary investigation, then passed the material on to police internal affairs. And that was the last he heard of the matter.

Jackson was furious that when the matter came to court, the charges were downgraded. Hanna pleaded guilty to lesser charges. He did not spend one day in jail.

Cushway resigned from the police in May 2009. He is understood to be collecting a pension in excess of $100,000 a year for a shoulder injury he suffered while in the force. After a stint as general manager of Guyra shire council, he was appointed the university's chief operating officer.

Cushway told the Herald he had never had any commercial dealings with Hanna. Of Hanna's arrest and prosecution, he said: ''I was not a party to those proceedings, nor was I involved in any way in the investigative process. I am not authorised to comment further on such matters in accordance with the confidentiality obligations that still bind me.''

One person not surprised by the recent turn of events is Tamworth magistrate Roger Prowse. For two decades Prowse has dedicated himself to the pursuit of Torbay: ''He perjured himself and perverted the course of justice, and in the process my client's life was destroyed.''

In 1992 Prowse was representing a student, Tom Hudson, who was charged with stealing university student union cheques made out to the Armidale Youth Refuge. The cheques were signed by Torbay, who was the financial manager of the student union and the secretary of the refuge. The $20 cheques were payment for Hudson hosting a lunchtime trivia quiz at the university. Hudson said it was Torbay who decided to pay him by cheques made out to the refuge, where Hudson was the co-ordinator. Torbay wrote to him explaining why he was structuring the payments in this way. ''Torbay referred to it as 'administrative tidying-up or rearranging the deckchairs,' '' Hudson said.

If Hudson was shocked by his arrest, he was even more shocked when Torbay did nothing. ''I looked to Torbay for support but it was not forthcoming,'' he said. At his later trial, requests for documents from the union as well as Torbay's letter produced nothing. Torbay gave evidence that the union's cheques were donations to the refuge. Under cross-examination, Torbay denied all knowledge of the letter.

Hudson was sacked from his job and now has a criminal record.

But mysterious things seem to emerge when Torbay stands for public office. In 1999, on the eve of Torbay's campaign to become an independent state MP, Hudson found a pleasant surprise in his letterbox. ''[It was] the evidence that I had requested for my court case … including the letter sent to me by Torbay.''

Neither Hudson nor Prowse know who put the letter in Hudson's box, but armed with Torbay's letter, Prowse complained to various authorities, to no avail. He warned the Nationals when they pre-selected Torbay. And this week he formally complained to the police.

As to who was responsible for the most recent bombshell which has seen Torbay being referred to ICAC, quitting public life and vanishing into thin air, no one seems to know.

Do you know more? kmcclymont@fairfaxmedia.com.au

Correction: The original version of this story said Phillip Hanna had driven to his business partner's house with a .22 shotgun rather than a .22 calibre rifle.